


Backstroke

by wickersnap



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Kiss, Getting Together, Kinda?, Love Confessions, M/M, Swimming Pools, it's dumb but also fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25999591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickersnap/pseuds/wickersnap
Summary: “Hurry up, you guys!” Anakin calls over his shoulder. He’s already standing by the bench on the poolside and tugging his t-shirt up and over his head. Rex tries to feel guilty for letting his eyes wander over the flexing muscles of his best friend’s back and shoulders. He tries, because their friends areright there,but he also thinks he really can’t be blamed.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 20
Kudos: 176





	Backstroke

**Author's Note:**

> This is really stupid, I know, but it was one of those things that got into my head and decided to take up permanent residency. I hope yall can enjoy it as much as I did imagining it :) I promise I love them a normal amount

“Are you _sure_ this is a good idea?” Rex hisses. The sound of their shoes scuffing against the tile echoes off the water and rises into the ceiling alongside Anakin’s bark of laughter, setting him on edge with the thought of their secret midnight adventure soon becoming not-so-secret. He can feel sweat beading on the back of his neck and where his t-shirt has clung to him more and more uncomfortably over the course of the evening. The smell of industrial chlorine coats his throat and hums in his sinuses in that pleasant way that stings of summer.

“I think it’s a _brilliant_ idea,” Anakin replies.

“Hey,” Ahsoka jeers, “it was you who said you’d do it in the first place!” 

Rex sighs and throws his arms uselessly up in the air. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think I’d actually lose, did I?”

A familiar hand lands a hard clap on his shoulder as Cody nearly pushes him over. “One of these days you’ll learn,” he says. “One of them.”

“Hurry up, you guys!” Anakin calls over his shoulder. He’s already standing by the bench on the poolside and tugging his t-shirt up and over his head. Rex tries to feel guilty for letting his eyes wander over the flexing muscles of his best friend’s back and shoulders. He tries, because their friends are _right there,_ but he also thinks he really can’t be blamed.

“Remind me why you have to strip for this too, Anakin?” asks a long-suffering Obi-Wan. Rex’s brain kicks itself back into gear in time to keep him from tripping over a stray pool float as he makes his way towards them. Anakin flings his trainers at the wall and begins shoving his jeans down his legs. Rex tries not to stare. Not to wonder how it would feel to be able to _touch._

“Aw, c’mon,” Anakin whines. “Let’s all go! It’ll be fun!”

“This was supposed to be Rex’s penalty. You know, for _losing?”_

“Have you not been complaining about how hot it’s been for like, two weeks now?” Ahsoka points out. Her leggings and Cody’s boots have joined the pile forming at the foot of the bench, followed in short order by the rest of their clothes. 

Rex startles when Anakin, now only in his boxers, turns to pin him with a promising, dangerous smirk. He feels caught, frozen between the urge to run and the need to stay right where he is. 

“Off,” Anakin orders, stepping unhesitatingly into Rex’s space and hooking his fingers beneath the hem of his shirt. “Come on, off. All of it.”

“All of it?” Rex pleads, helpless to do anything but raise his arms and let Anakin pull it off him. Warm knuckles brush against his ribs and he shivers, hoping beyond hope that he’s not going to embarrass himself. The shifting cotton is the only thing that breaks their lingering eye contact, and it feels like a cool relief and a heavy loss all at the same time. Anakin’s so close Rex can practically feel heat radiating off him; so close he wants to touch and knows he shouldn’t. Anakin grins.

“I’ll be generous and let you keep your underwear.” Somewhere over his shoulder, Padmé snorts loudly.

“Generous,” Cody mutters. “Yeah, right.”

Rex half-turns away from Anakin to unbutton his shorts before those teasing fingers can reach for them too, toeing off his trainers and kicking them somewhere that isn’t wet. He ends up standing at the edge of the school swimming pool and staring into his own pained, pristine reflection, wondering just what the hell he did to end up here. 

Ah yes, that’s right. Listened to his own stupidity.

“You ready?” Ahsoka asks, stepping up on his right in just her underwear and tube top. She’s tied her braids up into a knot on the top of her head and looks far too excited to be jumping into what he bets will be freezing cold water.

“I guess,” he says. He can’t help but smile when Anakin comes to stand at his other side. 

Ahsoka holds out a hand for him to take, gesturing for he and Anakin to do the same and smirking in satisfaction. “On three?” 

“One!” Padmé begins from behind them. Rex looks down at Anakin’s offered hand and slips his own, rougher one into it. Anakin’s fingers close gently over his and squeeze.

“Two!” Rex turns back to the water, golden-green from the lights Cody switched on and deathly still without the pumps.

“Three!”

Rex grips Anakin and Ahsoka’s hands hard and leaps from the side of the pool, breathing out through his nose and bracing himself for the incoming cold. It hits him unexpectedly all the same, just like that fence panel that fell on his head last week, and swallows him whole as they plunge beneath a tidal wave of their own making. Sound becomes a dull rush of gurgling water, his eyes shut tightly against the icy bombardment. Ahsoka’s hand twists and he lets it go so she can flail dramatically, kicking up when his own feet hit the bottom and forcing his face back through the surface.

 _“Fuck!”_ is the first thing he hears, spluttering and laughing beside him. “Fuck, that’s _cold!”_

“Boo!” comes a shout from the sidelines.

“Wimps!”

“Come on, Anakin, surely you can do better than that!”

Rex blinks water from his eyes and turns to see Ahsoka hugging her chest and falling back under in her laughter. On his other side Anakin is shaking his head, floundering his free hand in a poor attempt to comb the sodden strands of his hair away from his face and clinging tightly to Rex’s with the other.

“That wasn’t as painful as I’d expected,” Rex says. Either Ahsoka’s laughter is contagious or they’re all going hysterical, because he can feel a bewildering ripple of hilarity building in his chest and Anakin is already beginning to choke from lack of air. 

“Move over!” Cody yells, and then there’s a second huge splash as he barrels in after them. Rex shouts and wrenches his hand back to shield his face, laughing again at the way Ahsoka shrieks and tries to jump on Cody’s back in retaliation.

“You do realise that none of you have anything to dry off with when you get out?” Obi-Wan muses from the bench. 

“It’s a bit late now,” Padmé giggles. She crouches at the side of the pool and chucks a kickboard at Anakin, who seems to have finally gotten enough of his hair out of the way to see again. He yelps as it bounces off his head and Ahsoka lunges for it, still shrieking with laughter.

“Why the hell does it have teeth marks in it?” she cackles. “You been munchin’ on foam, Rex?”

“It wasn’t me!” he protests, ducking under the water when she lobs it at him. She splashes wildly past to collect it and accost Cody again instead.

“You coming in?” Anakin asks Padmé, having bobbed over to her and hoisted himself up onto the ledge with his elbows. Despite how much it makes him hate himself, Rex cannot seem to tear his eyes away. Not when he’s faced with that sparkling smile, his dripping hair (never mind how much it makes him look bedraggled), or the way the water runs in streams down his back and thighs. He can’t quite hear what’s being said, but suddenly there’s something about _fingers in asses_ and good _gods_ that was not anything Rex needed to be thinking about right now, not now, _any time_ but now. Anakin splashes her in outrage and she falls backwards laughing, scrambling away from the puddle he’s making at her feet.

 _“Padmé!”_ he cries.

“You know I’m right!” she replies. “Now go on, turn around and I’ll join you in a bit.”

Absently, Rex notices Cody wandering quietly off down the other end of the pool. The water lapping around his chest and arms is a soothing balm to the pressing humidity of the night, and yet doing nothing to help Rex’s own problem with the fierce heat climbing up the back of his neck and across his cheeks. He looks up again when Anakin pushes off the side of the pool and makes his way back to him, holding out his hands in invitation.

“Having fun?” he asks. Rex raises an eyebrow and cautiously reaches out to take his hands again, relieved when Anakin doesn’t pull away or look at him weirdly. Not that he would. He is the one offering after all. Right? 

“It’s not so bad,” he admits. “Better than sweating all night.”

Anakin’s smirk tilts up as he begins to swing them in slow circles through the water. “Oh, I’m sure we could have found a way to enjoy it.” Rex stares at him for a moment before laughing, startled and flustered. “What?” Anakin protests. “Hey, what?”

“Nothing,” Rex says. He’s the one making up things that aren’t actually there, after all. “Nothing, don’t worry.”

Anakin opens his mouth again—undoubtedly to complain and demand answers—but before he can say a single word there’s a very undignified screech from over where they’d left Obi-Wan. Both Rex and Anakin jump in surprise and crane their necks over to see.

“Put me down!” Obi-Wan yells. His voice bounces off the tiles from where he’s slung over Cody’s shoulder and echo around the cavernous hall. Cody, who’s grinning evilly and gesturing rapidly to a half-dressed Padmé.

“Get his shoes! Get his shoes!” he tells her.

“Cody, put me down! You’re _wet!”_

“Where’s his phone?” Padmé asks, yanking Obi-Wan’s shoes ruthlessly from his feet.

“It’s fine, in his jacket! Now come on, before I drop him!” He turns his head to leer at Obi-Wan, brazenly kissing his cheek and shouting, “For luck!” while trying to dodge the hand Obi-Wan tries very hard to smack him with. 

As soon as Padmé steps back Cody starts off at a run, and Rex knows instantly what’s about to happen. Anakin tugs on their hands to pull Rex closer and manages to spin them so that Rex, though shielded, has a perfect view over Anakin’s sun-bronzed shoulder of Cody and Obi-Wan crashing head-first into the pool. Obi-Wan comes up spitting water, his hair sticking to his forehead and eyes just like Anakin’s.

 _“Cody!”_ he shouts again. 

“That’s me,” Cody chuckles, sliding his arms around his boyfriend’s waist and perching his chin on his shoulder like the smarmy dick he is. “You know you love me.”

Obi-Wan flips him off while he empties his nose of water. “Not when you pull stunts like this! Hell, Qui-Gon and Shmi aren’t going to be happy when we get home _dripping wet.”_

“They don’t have to know,” Anakin says. 

Ahsoka snickers. “Unless you’re gonna tell them, daddy’s boy?”

“What? No! Why would I—”

“Look out!” Padmé calls. At least she, caretaker-of-the-single-shared-brain-cell, waits for everyone to splash away to a safe distance before she launches herself into their midst. Rex realises he’s still clutching at Anakin’s arms when Anakin’s fingers tighten around his own. The press of his shoulder against Anakin’s collar bone distracts him enough that he almost doesn’t register her words when Padmé surfaces and splutters, most indignantly, “God, my _bra_ almost came off!”

The five of them are set off laughing again, Anakin waving at her with one hand and shouting, “You don’t really think _we’d_ mind if it did, do you?”

“Wolves!” she laughs back at him, clutching her stomach and doing her best to salvage her remaining dignity.

“She’ll report you for harassment if you’re not careful,” Rex says. 

“Aw, she knows I don’t mean it,” Anakin pouts. He takes a half step back and picks up Rex’s hands again, linking their fingers together like it’s nothing. Like he hasn’t just short-circuited the entirety of Rex’s rational thought function. He starts pushing and pulling their joined arms through the water, swaying them both from side to side in a lazy dance as they wander in circles. “You, on the other hand… I reckon we could get you out of them.”

“I don’t have a bra,” Rex tells him stupidly, and then feels the intense urge to smack himself in the face. Anakin laughs again and pulls him a little closer. It becomes an effort to keep his breathing under control with Anakin, almost naked, just over a hair’s breadth away from him. He feels Anakin’s own warm breath over his damp cheek, feels his head bowed almost close enough to rest their foreheads together. Sees his eyes glimmering with reflections in the dim light.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he says quietly, and Rex’s heart might just stop altogether. Anakin’s voice all but screams his nervousness. “I mean, you can hit me if I’m overstepping, seriously, but I kinda have to say it, you know? I guess I’ve tried being, like, _subtle_ and it didn’t really work—or maybe I’m just really bad at it—”

“Anakin,” Rex interrupts gently. His stomach seems to have leapt into the back of his throat. “What is it?”

Anakin sighs and bites his lower lip, lets it slip between his teeth as he considers. 

“I like you, Rex,” he says, and Rex freezes.

“You do?” he asks. Backtracks. “Wait, no, of course you do. We’re friends. Aren’t we?”

Anakin’s smiles turns rueful as he watches Rex make a fool of himself and plays with their joined fingers. “That’s not… _Quite_ what I meant.”

“…We’re not?” Rex asks, because he might genuinely be an idiot.

“No, no! I mean— _yes,_ we are—but that’s not what I meant,” Anakin flusters. “I meant—I mean I _like_ you Rex. More than that.”

Rex stares at him for another long moment, a moment that almost stretches uncomfortably long before he blurts out, “You’re fucking with me.”

He knows almost instantly that it’s the wrong thing to say. Anakin straightens his shoulders and laughs nervously, the grip of his fingers curled around Rex’s loosening. Somewhere, far away, Padmé and Ahsoka are kicking up a storm in the water.

“Sorry!” Rex flushes. “Sorry, no, that’s not what I meant to say—”

“I’m not fucking with you.”

He’s serious. He’s smiling and rubbing circles over the back of Rex’s hands with his thumbs and they’re both nearly naked but this is _Anakin,_ and so he is _serious,_ and Rex has no idea how to express the severity of the thoughts amounting to _holy hells, please never let go_ currently going through his head.

“How?” is what he ends up saying, and Anakin’s brow creases adorably.

“How? What do you mean, how? I don’t—”

“No, how _long,”_ Rex corrects hurriedly. “How… How long?”

“Oh, you know,” Anakin sighs, his furrowing brows smoothing out a little as he finds something amusing in Rex’s disarray. “Maybe a year, maybe two.”

“Two years?” he echoes distantly. “That’s a long time.”

“I guess.”

Rex swallows the thick knot of saliva that’s built up in his throat. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugs. His skin shimmers and ripples and almost derails Rex’s thoughts _yet again._ “I didn’t think it’d be welcome.”

“Are you kidding?” Rex balks. “No, I— _Anakin,_ you must have noticed by now.”

“N-Noticed? Noticed what? What haven’t I noticed?”

Rex blinks once, twice, and can’t quite stifle the incredulous chuckle that bubbles up through his anxiety. Anakin worries at his lip again and seems to twist their fingers together without really realising he’s doing it, and Rex knows then and there that if he hasn’t already, he could absolutely fall in _love_ with this man.

“I think I win,” he murmurs. “Three years is definitely longer than two.”

Anakin’s hold on his hands tightens momentarily before he holds them up to clasp excitedly in front of them. Rex looks up to see him grinning widely, in the exact way that’s driven him mad for those aforementioned three years, and grins pathetically and giddily back.

“You’re serious?” Anakin asks, and Rex scoffs, lightheaded. 

“I think Fives was contemplating murder last time you came up in conversation around me.”

“Rex…”

“Really, ask anyone. He was pretty much reaching for the nearest pillow…” 

Rex can feel the heat in his cheeks. It never left, but now it feels worse than ever, not calmed even the slightest by the chill reflecting off the water. He knows their friends are watching them even if they’re pretending not to (and yeah, what kind of weirdos stand around holding hands for ten minutes in a _pool),_ and that none of them are blind or deaf and are bound to _know,_ but at this moment he really does not care. Because at this moment, beautiful ribbons of light are winding and waving across Anakin’s smooth skin, the long lashes of his wonderfully expressive eyes, and bathing the moment between them in the soft glow of what feels like summer.

“Can I…” Rex begins, but finds the words stick to the roof of his mouth with his nerves. He clears his throat and tries not to let his gaze linger on Anakin’s lips longer than it should. “May I kiss you?”

The corners of those lips quirk up again, leaning into the ridiculous mischievious streak they all know and fear. Gods, Rex hates it when Anakin gets ideas. They usually mean unending hours of pitiful pining, on his part.

“How about you come and get one,” Anakin says, and throws himself backwards, with no warning whatsoever, straight into the water. Rex takes a short moment to swallow his beating heart back down to where it should be before taking a deep breath and ducking down after him, delighted and unsurprised to find him waiting there, eyes closed against the sting of chlorine. 

_(It’s awful, Rex, I don’t know how you can stand it! No, I won’t just get used to it—what do you_ mean _it doesn’t hurt?)_

He reaches out to brush a hand over Anakin’s cheek, marvelling at how his hair haloes around him like in those films with mermaids, only a hundred times more beautiful. A small burst of bubbles escape his smiling mouth at Rex’s touch, and Rex wastes no time in closing his own eyes and finally, _finally_ pressing his lips to Anakin’s.

Hands carefully curve over the side of his neck and waist as Anakin pulls him closer, laughing and expelling more bubbles between their faces. Rex laughs too, at the strange feel of it if not their inability to do even what they’re most desperate to, and pulls them back up into fresh air to gasp for breath and giggle their hearts out. Anakin’s mouth finds his again, eventually, and their lips press a delicious, enthusiastic warmth against each other. He tastes of water and heat and of orange soda long gone, and Rex tilts his head to the side, smiles at the way Anakin’s tiny breaths fan over his cheek, and winds his fingers into the strands of his long, sodden hair. Somewhere he cares about a lot less than _right here, right now,_ someone whoops loudly and someone else—Cody, doubtlessly—whistles at them.

“Fucking finally!” Ahsoka yells. Rex thinks he hears Obi-Wan mutter something like, “Took you long enough,” but he’s decidedly more interested in continuing to kiss Anakin than paying attention to anyone else.

“I second that,” Anakin murmurs against his mouth. “Especially if we could’ve been doing this _two years ago.”_

“And you think you had it bad.” Rex rolls his eyes, but the placating hand stroking his hip is pretty good at convincing him to be less annoyed and to return his investment to kissing.

“Oh no, they’re going to be disgusting,” Padmé sighs dramatically. 

“And you and Sabé aren’t?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Excuse me, we have _class.”_

“Fox and Ponds are gonna be so mad,” Cody snickers. “They owe me a whole twenty dollars each.”

Rex jerks around to glare at him, untangling one of his hands from Anakin’s hair to point a very annoyed finger at him. “I demand a cut of that, you bastard.”

“Either that or you’re buying us pizza,” Anakin agrees sagely.

“Damn it!” Ahsoka adds, splash petulantly with a pool noodle. “Now I owe Barriss!”

Rex sighs and lets Anakin pull him down to rest his chin on his head. “Did you _all_ have money on us?”

“No,” say Obi-Wan and Padmé, just a little too quickly. Rex rolls his eyes and leans into Anakin, relishing the feel of strong arms crossed over his middle from behind and the warm planes of Anakin’s chest pressing against his back. Anakin hums and tightens his hold, and Rex can tell that he’s very resolutely ignoring the faces Ahsoka is making at them from her perch on Obi-Wan’s shoulders.

“So, what are we now?” Anakin asks quietly. “Can we… I mean, would you like to date?”

Rex snorts and turns inside the circle of his arms, dragging his eyes over all the parts of Anakin he’s wanted to memorise, practically since they’d first met, all the way up to meet his sincere, vulnerable blue gaze.

“Is that really a question?” he asks in return. “Yes. Yes _please,_ and I will hit you if we don’t.”

Anakin laughs with astounding joy. It’s not the easiest to spin someone around underwater and still Anakin insists on trying, lifting Rex’s feet from the tiled bottom of the pool and half-drowning the both of them in his overzealous excitement.

“So—boyfriends?” he asks again once they’re back on their feet. Rex looks between their friends’ eager and encouraging expressions and back to Anakin’s rather sappy grin.

“Yeah,” he says, and bites down on his own besotted smile. “Boyfriends. I like the sound of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr!](https://silverxsakura.tumblr.com/)


End file.
